Fear of God (page 4)

Narkissos

Ross,

Would you not say that these texts follow the precept of fear being the beginning of wisdom, though?

Certainly not all of them: many are actually directed to Christians, pointing to the ongoing need of fearing God / Christ in order to attain final salvation (e.g. Philippians 2:12).

Talesin,

Acts 13:16
Paul exhorts those 'who fear G*d' to listen to him .... sounds like a televangelizer. ; I don't see how this is positive.
It seems to me that we should listen to people because we respect them and their deeds, not because we fear their [hidden, nameless, unknown, despotic] boss.
He is still basing faith upon fear -- fear, not love.

Yes, he is, that was exactly my point.

But "positive" was not my assessment of it -- I just meant that "fear of God" was a positive (indeed, essential) value in the eyes of most NT writers. In particular, Luke-Acts constantly use "fear" in a powerfully scaring way (e.g. the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5).

So the apologetic (and by implication antijewish) argument that the OT taught "fear of God" but the NT teaches "love of God" is really shortsighted imo.

Moreover, I really don't see how the NT Jesus can be construed to differ from that pattern (Matthew 10:28 etc.).

AllAlongTheWatchtower

Oddly enough, I was just thinking something along these lines today. For some odd reason, the phrase about if you have as much faith as would fill a mustard seed kept going through my head. That's a pretty darn small amount. Just based on probability and statistics, SOMEBODY should have suddenly moved a mountain somewhere, and then been going 'uh....oops, sorry folks'. Like the old saw about an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters creating the works of Shakespeare. I mean, what with the Crusades, and martyrs who allowed themselves to be killed for their beliefs...obviously there HAVE BEEN people who had faith. Yet you constantly hear religious leaders berating people for their lack of faith. To me, its just further evidence of the guilt/punishment cycle thinking of religion. There is faith out there, so where is god?

Come to think of it, I DO know why I was thinking about this, I was watching Law & Order SVU on tv, and the episode was about a couple who killed their young adopted son while trying to have him healed by a faith healer. The boy had epilepsy and the faith healer held him down while he was having a seizure to 'cast out the demons', resulting in the boy's death.

Tetrapod, your posts always interest me. I read the Wikipedia link you gave on the god-of-the-gaps concept, and liked it. It got me thinking, hypothetically, what if god really DOES exist, but god's power is shrinking because us mere mortals are getting smarter, and closing up the gaps? This would at least explain why god used to perform miracles and such back in the old testament, then only through christ in the new (he had to be physically present in an avatar because his power faded), and now does nothing at all. This would kinda coincide with Deism too, I think, as they believe that a higher power created the universe, but is either no longer in control of it, or just doesn't interfere in it any longer. Not that I believe any of this, just food for idle thought.

talesin

Ah, yes, I see what you were saying Narkissos. We are on the same page, then.

tal

LittleToe

Not like you to ignore the context of that one, Didier

Can man really earn his salvation, through his fear? That would seem completely at odds with the message of the epistles.

AATW:Strangely enough it was on my mind, during the week, too. |I even considered starting a thread on it, myself. My comments were my conclusions from a couple of days ago.

Narkissos

Ross,

What in Paul comes closer to the Johannine idea of "love expelling fear" is probably Romans 8:15:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God

Yet neither Paul nor his followers give up the use of "fear" as the list of texts I provided above shows. And in Luke-Acts fear becomes overwhelming (I feel).

Btw, I remember an interesting saying -- don't remember by whom unfortunately, but I heard it from a Calvinist theologian: "If you fear, fear not; if you don't fear, fear."

However Paul was hardly that paradoxically consistent.

somebody

LittleToe >>>>>"Love" is the bottom line, as seen in the teachings of Jesus, the two greatest commandments, etc., etc. Has man learnt this particular lesson well enough to progress further? Sadly, I think not, and unfortunately much of his religion epitomises this fact..."

SO TRUE. That one emotion called LOVE is not so hard to feel, as it is to show, LittleToe. And when people are taught to not show it even when they do in fact feel it, it causes PAIN to everyone who loves.

jeanniebeanz

from my own experience; which is the experience of the "love" of the Divine, which suffuses and transcends anything else I've ever experienced.

Is it possible to experience something so realistically in ones own mind that it would appear to come from some distant, greater source?

J

Rod P

what if god really DOES exist, but god's power is shrinking because us mere mortals are getting smarter, and closing up the gaps?

That is a pretty good question in my books. This brings up what I read back in the 1980's in a book titled "God drives a flying saucer"

Yeah I know, you're all gonna laugh at that one! So did I.

Anyway, suppose there is a God of this Universe, but this Universe is contained within this God. This is a pantheistic concept of deity, where God is in all and thru all. Everything in the Universe is a part of God, just like the cells in our bodies are a part of You or Me.

Now, let us suppose that in this vast Universe that we see (and also including the greater part that we cannot yet see) there are other civilizations or beings or intelligences like us, only they have been around a few million years longer than life on this planet Earth. And so they became far more advanced technologically than us mortals on earth, and mastered the science of space travel. Then they visited this planet, injected their DNA into the lowly Primates, and voila! a million year leap in Evolution. Hence emerged the Homo Sapiens- that's us!

Now these beings from other planets have been visiting us since the start of their experiments thousands of years ago, and similarly continue to monitor our progress even to this day. Hence we get UFO sightings all down thru the centuries in every culture and time period known to man. Traces of this are left behind in the ancient texts and cuneiform writings and Egyptian heiroglyphs, Mayan glyphs, cave drawings, etc. etc. etc.

In other words, the primitive cultures saw these technological masters and worshipped them as gods, when really they are like "brothers" in an intergalactic family of life forms, but everyone from all worlds is all part of the Ultimate God of this Universe, that is in all and thru all. Maybe this is where a lot of these ancient cultures god their ideas about "the gods" as reflected in their records since the invention of writing.

No, I am not preaching some new religion. Just speculating a few idle thoughts along the way. But I am still trying to make some sense of all this UFO stuff, and it ain't all hoaxes, hallucinations, weather balloons and swamp gas.

Rod P.

A Paduan

Certainly not all of them: many are actually directed to Christians, pointing to the ongoing need of fearing God / Christ in order to attain final salvation (e.g. Philippians 2:12).

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Is this not still addressed to the novice ? Is it a work in progress, or a promise, that, "..he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life."

The work in progress is still the understanding of the novice - beginning

Fear of God

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